How Remote Working Can Increase Your Happiness

Remote working opportunities have continued to steadily grow all around the world for the past several years. A workforce research study conducted by Upwork surveyed 1000 hiring managers of randomly selected American companies, exploring different aspects of work behaviors. It indicates that small businesses and start-ups predict that 38 out of 100 employees in their organizations are estimated to shift to remote full time, part-time and casual positions over the next 10 years. This also shows that remote jobs are continuing to expand to more positions across several industries, especially in Texas and California.

Another study indicates that 91% of American employees think and feel that they’re more productive with a remote arrangement. The same report indicates that they’re also generally happier. This research was performed with the help of 509 randomly selected full-time employees across various positions at US-based companies and small businesses in a diverse range of industries. Results were also compared against relevant benchmarks generated from the responses of over 200K American employees in different work arrangements.

So how exactly can your desired remote job make you happier? And how is this different from an in-house arrangement? Here are some factors that were chosen by a majority of respondents of recent studies and research projects in the US:

Top 5 Reasons Why Remote Employees Are Generally Happier

1. Increased Productivity

Large numbers of employees feel happier when they produce more and much better output on a daily basis, especially when they receive commensurate rewards, benefits, and praise from their superiors and co-workers. Many of them say this increase in work output volume and quality can mainly be attributed to their more relaxed environment as they go about their day-to-day duties and responsibilities at their jobs.

These remote work arrangements also enable them to avoid spending too much time and energy preparing to go to work and commuting to and from their workplaces. A lot of them say that they instead use this time and energy to do their daily work-related activities and perform their primary responsibilities for the company. Simply put, they think and feel that they’re able to channel this more focused energy to complete their most important duties and obligations for their employers, superiors, and co-workers.

2. More Creativity & Freedom

Working remotely also requires employees to develop their own time management skills, strategies, and tactics. They use this creative freedom to continuously optimize their day-to-day activities for completing their tasks and responsibilities for the company. And at the same time, they also need to balance the time that they need to fulfill their duties and obligations in and out of their homes for their families and friends.

A remote working setup enables them to come up with the most streamlined set of day-to-day processes and systems for doing the things they enjoy the most at home, not only for their remote jobs but also for recreational activities outside of work. This makes them value their remote jobs more as it gives them the creative freedom to develop their own daily schedules to best suit their particular situations. This, in turn, makes them a lot happier with their remote jobs than with any other arrangement.

3. More Team Building Activities

A lot of companies save a lot of time, money and other resources when they employ remote workers. They no longer need to invest in new equipment and larger office spaces just to grow their workforce teams. They also require less back end support staffing resources when they work with employees through remote working arrangements.

The resources these companies can save can then be put to much better use. That’s why a lot of them constantly organize offline and online team building activities for both their in-house and remote staff. This, in turn, makes their employees happier as they not only enjoy these team-building initiatives, but they also develop friendships and partnership opportunities with their co-workers, superiors, and executives along the way.

4. Diverse Culture

A company that hires remote employees can do so with very minimal geographic limitations. This means they can hire the workers they need in virtually any country all around the world. This also provides its employees with the opportunity to collaborate with others across a wide range of cultures and traditions.

Almost everybody is happy to learn new interesting things, especially if it’s about cultures and traditions that are practiced in countries they are unfamiliar with. This is also often the case when an in-house or a remote employee communicates and collaborates with their co-workers in other countries on a daily basis. They share their diverse experiences with each other as they start to know each other better.

5. More Rewarding Output-Based Arrangements

Many remote working arrangements involve output-based agreements between the company and the virtual worker. This means the remote employee can commit to producing a particular volume of daily, weekly and monthly work output for a mutually agreed monthly salary. And as remote workers start to become faster and better at completing their work output quotas, they’ll be able to earn more when they request for higher quotas while using up around the same time and energy to fulfill their commitments.

This also means remote workers aren’t paid for the time they spend performing their daily tasks and responsibilities for the company. They’re instead paid for what they complete on a daily basis. So they’ll still be paid full daily wages even if it takes them a lot less time to complete their work for the day.

This then enables them to do other things they enjoy the most for the rest of the day. They can even request for additional work, of course for additional pay. Simply put, they can control the time they spend, the work they complete and the money they earn on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. This flexibility is found to be one of the most important reasons that make a lot of remote working employees happier.

However, despite these numerous reasons, some business owners and prospect employees are wary of remote working since there are some setbacks as well. One of these includes the inevitable lack of communication and the difficulty in setting up meetings due to the difference in location. Fortunately, virtual meetings can solve these issues and help increase company productivity in the process.

Conclusion

Remember these top 5 factors if you’re a business owner. This can help you identify the key points that can make your in-house and remote employees happier, more productive and effective in fulfilling their daily tasks and responsibilities. This can also enable you to optimize the cost-effectiveness of your back end workflow processes and systems.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a remote working opportunity, knowing what perks await you can help your decision in finding the most promising and rewarding remote jobs out there for your particular interests, needs, and current situation.